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Chapter 4: Let It Be So

Hasidism is the religion of prayerfulness, that’s why in Hasidism there is no renunciation. A Hasid lives the natural life that existence has conferred on him. Wherever existence has placed him, he lives, he loves; he enjoys the small pleasures of life. And once you start enjoying the small pleasures, the total accumulative effect is a great bliss in your being.

This has to be understood. Don’t wait for some great bliss to descend on you. It never happens. Great bliss is nothing but small pleasures accumulating in your being. The total of all the small pleasures is the great bliss. Eating, enjoy it. Drinking, enjoy it. Taking a bath, enjoy it. Walking, enjoy it. Such a beautiful world, such a beautiful morning, such beautiful clouds.what else do you need to celebrate? The sky full of stars.what more do you need to be prayerful? The sun rising from the east.what more do you need to bow down? And amidst a thousand and one thorns a small roseflower arises, opening its buds, so fragile, so vulnerable, yet so strong, so ready to fight with the wind, with the lightning, with the thunder. Look at the courage.what more do you need to understand trust?

Techniques are needed when you have missed these small openings toward godliness. If you go on looking in the small openings, the total effect is a great door. And suddenly you start seeing what prayerfulness is. Not only seeing, you start living it.

Hasidism is a totally different approach than Tantra. And Hasidism is far superior to any Tantra, because it is the natural Tantra, it is the natural way. It is the way of Tao.

But the mind is very cunning. The mind wants to manipulate. The mind wants to manipulate even the relationship of love; the mind wants to manipulate even the mysterious phenomenon of prayerfulness. The mind is a great controller. The obsession of the mind is to control everything, not to allow anything beyond control - hence technique. The mind is always asking for techniques and the mind goes on planning for every possibility.

If you plan for every possibility, if you manage for everything on your own, you never give a chance to existence to penetrate you, to take control onto its shoulders. You never allow existence to help you. You think you have to be independent; you think there is no other way than self-help. You remain unnecessarily poor.

A small child was playing around his father, who was sitting in the garden, and the small child was trying to pull up a big rock. It was too big and he could not do it. He tried hard. He was perspiring.

The father said, “You are not using all your energies.”

The child said, “Wrong. I am using all my energy. And I don’t see what more I can do.”

The father said, “You have not asked me to help. That too is your energy. I am sitting here and you have not asked me to help. You are not using all your energy.”